The dead mouse, frog juice and other kindergarden tales.......

"Working with children is good for the soul" a friend once uttered those words to me and it's a mantra I often repeat and believe. They are natural, they speak the truth and most importantly they are not yet corrupted.

Kids on the revolution

Directly after the revolution we had a circle to discuss matters with the older children (the 4 and 5 yr olds). It had, had a big effect on them, school had been closed for 2 weeks and a lot of their friends had left the country, a lot of them had heard gun shots at night and all of them had sensed their parent's fear and worry. They had grown used to having the news play in the background and many had not left the house due to the curfew and the security situation outside.
So what did the children have to say about things???.......
Well all of them were familiar with the name "Mubarak" and that he was somehow "bad". One Egyptian boy  put his hand up and told us all about the looting of a local shopping center; "The people went and took things from Carrefour, they broke everything and took everything without paying"
A German boy  interjected; "Yes because Mubarak stole all the money so they couldn't pay"
The first boy, who I assume has pro Mubarak parents said; "No,No!! it's all Omama, Omama is taking the money!!" With Omama he meant Obama.....
The discussion session ended soon after and the children enjoyed the running around outside which they had so missed during the revolution's darkest days. In the following weeks the pro regime boy taught the other children pro Mubarak chants which was bloody hilarious as we often had a big group of European blond kids swinging on the swing and chanting at the top of their lungs, very surreal indeed. Over time the chants changed and became pro military "The people and the army are hand in hand" this was a very popular one and still rings in my head 2 years later. When the Egyptian people grew tired of Military rule the chants changed yet again, now the children were shouting "Down with military rule". The school year came to an end, the original "revolution" children moved on to different schools and the chanting in the Garden stopped.
The events in Egypt still touched the children though, I once caught a boy throwing stones so I called him over to discuss this, I told him that it's very dangerous and not at all acceptable behavior..... he looked at me confused and said "But Bryony, in Tahrir the good people are throwing stones at the bad people"  hmmmm I was speechless, what could I say to that? His observation was spot on, I took the easy way out and said "Indeed they are but we are not in Tahrir".
Recently the power cuts have been unbearable and this too has left an impression on the children; a few weeks ago I overheard two 3 year old boys discussing the matter: Boy 1 "Morsi is taking the electric" boy 2 "Yes, Morsi needs to leave" adding a kicking movement to strengthen his point.
Children really do absorb what's going on and they cope with this through role play, reenactment and discussion.

 

Animals, reptiles and insects.....

I always adored watching the different interactions with the different insects and animals they came across in the garden, those interactions ranged from very funny to downright disturbing.....

Frogs, frogs, frogs...

We had a lot of frogs in the garden and the kids were of course always fascinated by them, they followed them, observed them, built habitats for them and caught them.
One boy liked them so much that he placed them in his pockets and forgot about them... this was only discovered when his poor mother was sorting out his jeans for washing and found his pockets were full of dead frogs! After hearing this we installed a no touching rule and were quite strict with it, of course rules are made to be broken.....
We had an old fashioned water pump in the back of the garden and the children were always very creative in their use of it; they put leaves inside and made "leaf juice", they put toot (mulberries) inside and made "toot juice" some even tried to make "stone juice" and we teachers marveled at their creativity and encouraged them to try out different materials.... this was all well and good until 1 boy (the frogs in the pocket boy) decided to make frog juice!! I wont go into details but it was certainly a big mess and we were more careful with the juicing activities from then on.

Lizards, "snakes" and the dead mouse

 We also had a lot of small lizards, the children didn't catch them as they were very fast but they enjoyed observing them, one boy recently screamed "look, look a dinosaur" upon seeing one. Oh to see the world through such innocent eyes.....
Once a group of children approached me saying that they had found a snake, at first I thought they had found something snake shaped, I mean they were always stumbling upon monsters and things like this, but they had a serious look in their eyes so I followed them to investigate. "The snake" was in fact another lizard type thing that had tiny, tiny legs and a snake like body, I didnt see the legs at first so freaked out a bit but what really impressed me was that the children's natural instincts had told them not to touch or catch "the snake" but rather to stay far away and get a teacher.
The same instincts were present when they stumbled upon a dead mouse in the bushes, they were not interested in touching it, just very interested in knowing why it was dead and why it was in the garden, we asked them what they thought and they decided that it was either a cat or that the mouse had eaten something bad. The mouses cause of death remains a mystery to this day.

The unfortunate beetle

We had plenty of bugs, beetles and flies, well it was a garden after all. We always told the children that outdoors was their environment and that there was no need to kill any insect they found outside. Once we were observing a big beetle, the children were very interested and discussed where the beetle might be going and how long it would take him to reach his destination. It was a group of around 8 children and a nice informative activity, well it was nice until a very boisterous 2 year old came over with a big plastic shovel and crashed it down on the beetle so hard that it splat all over the pathway. It happened so fast that there was no chance of stopping him and the boy was very proud of himself indeed.In his eyes he had done something good he had witnessed adults killing cockroaches at home so he felt he had done the right thing and rescued us from the evil beetle :).

Cats, dogs and a monkey.... yep a monkey 

we sometimes end up with stray abandoned kittens which the children adore feeding and nursing back to health. The neighbors have a dog which they observe but most interesting was the monkey we found staring at us from the papaya tree. The teachers were as thrilled as the children at the sight of this. He must have grown tired of papayas though though or maybe he just didn't like children as he stopped visiting and now gets his breakfast from one of the teachers who lives a few houses away.

This past 4 years spent working with children has certainly been an enlightening time for me. I never would have thought it would be my thing but they are so natural, so real and so funny. I got to observe true human nature before the outside world corrupted them and I think through them I learned things about myself that I never would have otherwise.
It's time for me to move on with my life now but I will never forget this 4 year stint as a kindergarten teacher and I will never forget the lessons these little humans have taught me.

Bedouin Kidnappers

This past weekend was very tense, the football tragedy happened on Wednesday and people were already out protesting about it on Thursday afternoon, they were marching towards the interior ministry which is where loads of people got killed in November so it was obvious that shit was going to kick off.  On top of that 2 kids got kidnapped on their way to school, they were from a super rich family and went to the German school in Dokki, this was scary as we also have a lot of super rich kids and well we are an international KG too, so everyone was on edge, then there were reports of more robbery's and it was all a bit scary and reminiscent of the revolution's darkest days. I spent Friday watching the news and at some point I read about 2 Americans being kidnapped in Sinai by armed Bedouin guys, my initial thought was wow way to go, another nail in the coffin for the tourism industry, as if the protests, crazy shit going on downtown and the Salafis weren't enough now we have kidnapped Americans woo hoo!! So I followed the news for the entire weekend and the next day the Americans were released and it actually made my day to read what they had said about the incident; the kidnappers were kind! they made tea and lit a fire and then served them bread and dates... they even told  one of the kidnappers that his smoking disturbed them so he went ahead and put out his cigarette! They were constantly told not to worry and to look at it as a special tour of the desert. It was strange, I was surrounded by dark, gloomy, serious and depressing stuff yet reading this made me remember how much I love Egypt and the Egyptians. This is not the place that they show on the news, it's not 24 hour fighting and there is no civil war, the people are warm and kind and are always willing to help. It's so easy to get swept up in the media storm and to believe that nothing is safe anymore, and yes the crime rate has risen but it is nothing compared to other huge cities around the world. there is some horrible stuff happening in certain areas and we should be aware and more cautious  but we should never ever forget the Egyptian people's hearts. I get very frustrated here at times but deep down when I look at the Egyptian people, I just know this country is going to be fine.

There is always a reason to celebrate....

The holidays never seem to end, once one thing is finished another thing starts which means a lot of eating sweet stuff and a lot of days off :) let's start with western Xmas you all know what that's all about and you know it's followed by more celebrations on new years eve, but that's it right? Holiday season over ... Well not if you are in Egypt the next one up is coptic Christmas on the 6th Jan, more cakes and more meat yaaaay then it's a few weeks at work until we have the 25th Jan which means a long weekend to celebrate the revolution so we then go back to work all refreshed to work another week which is followed by another long weekend because of the profits Birthday on the 5th of feb, this is another one that involves lots of eating, oriental sweets are the fare and they are simply delicious. Then we have western Easter in April, followed by Coptic Easter and then the Egyptian spring festival ( this always happens a day after Coptic easter and is a big family day) then at some point Ramadan happens which means finishing work early everyday and feasting every-night Ramadan is of course followed by eid which means a week off and lots of fun :) (the beer shop opens again so I normally celebrate this all week). Then it's the slaughter festival or as we call it at school "the sheep festival" this is a bit of a gruesome one as people sacrifice cows and sheep out on the street and well if you are not into gore it can be a bit much... On the plus side it means a week off. Then we role up to Xmas again ohhhh and of course I have a month in the summer too. He he he love Egypt and love my job xxxx

Downtown

I adore Cairo's downtown. Yes it is polluted and dirty and crowded and full of traffic and yes since the revolution even more rules have been thrown out of the window and it becomes genuinely dangerous some days, and yep when you walk the streets you can't help but think of all the blood that has been shed in the past months But oh how I love it. It's so full of eastern promise, the hustle the bustle, the unavoidable signs of poverty, this is a place where the poorest of the poor have smiles on their faces and spend their days working hard, chain smoking Cleopatra cigarettes and joking with passers by. There is the Tahrir area which is the center of the craziness, crossing the road is at its most daunting here... the buildings are huge and the entire square is over looked by the massive Mogamma (register office type building). Then you walk down some side streets and you enter the world of the street cafe's, the air is thick with the smell of shisha and the almost musical sound of the backgammon pieces being shifted around the boards. Old men sit next to young students, foreigners sit next to devout Muslims, artists and poets sit chewing the cud with political activists and AUC students, A tea costs a few pounds and the atmosphere is priceless, it is the perfect place to sit and people watch and allow the mind to wander. Street vendors pass by selling a wide range of products, tissues, watches, shiny Chinese gadgets, nuts, telephone cards, you name it they sell it.
The further you delve the more you discover, on the other side of Tahrir is Garden City, which boasts leafy green streets and beautiful architecture, it;s easy to imagine Cairo as it was in the first half of the last century here and it's just pleasing to see greenery so close to the concrete jungle just a short walk away, life seems slower in garden city and the apartments are just Devine. If you cross the main road you will find yourself in mounira, mounira is not green but it still has it's charm (I used to live there so I am biased), it's a little poorer then Garden City and the buildings are run down but there are the most quaint narrow ally's that have so much character, It is also home of the French culture center which in my opinion is the best culture center ever, they throw amazing parties and have a cute little cafe that sells all of the things normally forbidden (beer and pork of course)
Yup so that was my quick tour of downtown Cairo, it's a lovely place :)

El Tur a weird place....

At the beginning of Ramadan (Early August) I met a guy in Dahab who knew a place that issued 1 year visas rather then the measly 1 month the Mogamma in Cairo were currently offering. I took him up on the offer and the next day we drove to El Tur, El Tur is the administrative capital of South Sinai, I didn't see much of it in the few hours we were there, but I remember thinking it would be interesting to see more of the city.
A month later I got that chance, more friends needed visas (it is really becoming a big problem in Cairo) so we decided to go on a mission to El Tur, we found a hotel that said it was on the beach and we envisioned a few hours doing passport stuff and the rest of the day at the beach.......
So the journey started at 8am, we rented a minibus and were all at the arranged meeting point early and excited. The actual trip there was uneventful, we sang along to the spice girls and ate lots of chipsy (why does traveling make you want to eat so much?) We stopped at a place called Moon beach, most normal people had a coffee, Me and another girl decided to have a beer which was a terrible decision as it meant we needed to pee 10 minutes after getting back into the bus. Anyway we finally got to El Tur and drove directly to our hotel... ha ha ha on the beach? It was situated next to a drainage pipe and the beach was nowhere to be seen, hmm great maybe we could relax at the drainage pipe, set up a few chairs and drink a pinacolada whilst dipping our feet in the waste.... we thought about finding another hotel and drove around the city for a while, the other hotels were shockingly expensive (why? who comes here?) so we ended up back at the original one which was really dismal, full of cockroaches, no toilet paper in the bathrooms and damp all over the walls.
We then decided to go on a bit of an adventure and looked for somewhere to have dinner, we drove around for what seemed like forever and finally found a meat place, wow and there was a real clash of cultures as we walked in, there we were a group of mainly blonde girls/women (do I have to call myself a women?), inside was a table of fully covered women wearing the niquab (burka), their bearded husbands sat a table away, they looked at us and we looked at them, a cross cultural staring contest ensued. We ate our meal and were overcharged (I assume) and then vacated the place pretty fast. We then decided to find beer, one women with us decided she wanted to go back to the hotel to relax and made her way back, on the way children begged her for money and when she declined they threw stones at her... (what a lovely place this was).
So back to the mission of finding beer, we asked around for a beer shop and kept on hearing the name Fawzy, we assumed that Fawzy would be a "Drinkies" style shop and not too hard to find I mean liberal Sharm el Sheik was only an hours drive away so there had to be some form of alcohol here?? We searched and we searched and we almost gave up hope when we got right to the edge of town and still hadnt found the elusive Fawzy, but then one of the girls spotted a tiny handmade sign with a bottle of wine on it attached to a hut. Stooooooooooooooooop we all yelled in unison and we hoped out to take a closer look. We knocked on the door and an old toothless women opened the door, "Fawzy" we asked "Yeeeeeeeeeeeees" she replied and ushered us in. The room consisted of a big freezer, a bed, an oven and her son sat eating his dinner at a tiny table, they obviously lived here, we took in the surroundings as she threw open the freezer; it was full to the brim of all sorts of beer and alchopops. We went for the super strength lager, this place was strange and we thought we might well need it.
Next stop was a beach... well we all had the idea that we would relax on a beach somewhere and watch the sunset, everyone had their bikinis/swimsuits on under their clothes and were ready for an early evening dip in the sea. We finally found a place but there was no way we could strip down as it was very conservative and all of the women were veiled if not totally covered. The strange thing was it seemed totally fine that we were drinking beer, some of the girls ordered shisha (water pipe) from the beach sales guy (nice title ha) and we sat until late eating more chipsy, infact I should probably rename this post "the chipsy weekend" or something.
The next day everyone got their visas and then we set back to Cairo... leaving the strangeness of El Tur far behind us.
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Sux in the city....

Listening to my friends tales and spending hours having "Sex and the city" type conversations with the girls (hence the title and no its not a typo) I have come to a realization. Egyptian men cheat. I know a lot of you will say but all men cheat, but Egyptian men do it to a scale that actually makes me laugh with disbelief.. One of the girls I know is with a married guy (warning signs already I know) but they somehow have a normal relationship, well they did until she recently found out that he is  sneaking around going to events where he meets foreign women and trying his very best to contact any foreign girl he can. His reasoning when found out? Ahhh nothing happened, they were all fat and ugly. wow so she got lucky, but what if they were cute? So he pushed her to the point where she finally said, you are dead for me and it is over, and I was so proud of her, but then what did he do? He turned into a charmer, showed up at her place with a sign saying how stupid he was, brought flowers, begged for another chance, did everything he could to make her crack and back down, he became her dream guy for a few days and the entire time with a face like the cat who has got the cream. When he is secure in the knowledge that he has got her back he will return to his old self and she will be banging her head against the wall again.

Another guy who she works with spent years living in Europe, so one would assume he is more in touch with what is acceptable and what is not. He got together with another girl from work, a sweet Egyptian who was very much in love with him and willing to give up her own plans to be with him, the second he knew she was his he became bored and started to text the foreign girls he worked with telling them how into them he was...... Another girl I know is totally in love with a guy, they have been together for almost 3 years and all this guy wants to do is change her, she tries and tries to change but of course isn't able to change her entire existence so he tells her he will cheat, and her not changing is the same as him cheating, and the times he has cheated in the past are all her fault (!!!!). Another friend of mine is pregnant and of course married to an Egyptian, her husband didn't physically cheat but did go to the movies with another girl behind her back and spent time at the pool with her, one of his arguments for that was that he felt trapped because she always suspected him.  The same thing happened with all of these girls, they became angry, tried to end things and show that this was not behavior they would tolerate, their boys began to act perfect for a few days, if they were lucky weeks, they reeled them back in and then continued to act in exactly the same way.
Even my taxi driver.... the guy has a wife and kids and an English girlfriend on the side, he talks to the girlfriend on the phone in front of the wife and its obvious that the wife knows exactly what he is doing and who he is talking to, and you can see on her face that it hurts her (she traveled with us once).

But why is it that the men are so unable to stay monogamous? Well i think that part of it is society, its considered normal to have a women on the side here, they witness their fathers doing it without shame and on almost every TV show the guys have a mistress, to put it simple they believe it is their god given right to have a women on the side and actually get annoyed if their wives make it too complicated for them by checking up on them. Conclusion? Not really a conclusion but a warning maybe... if you are going to be with an Egyptian guy you should probably face up to the fact that he will cheat on you at some point, I know of a couple who haven't so far and I live in hope that they wont so I can be proved wrong, but honestly 95percent of the men I know or know of are cheating on their partners.
Yeah for us girls it truly sux in the city.

I am a slut!!!

Really! Every thing makes you a slut in Cairo.... You leave the house with wet hair, you are a slut, you accidentally make eye contact with a man, you are a slut, you smile at a man whilst talking to him, you are a slut, you smile and make eye contact at the same time, you are a mega slut, you ask a man for the time, a light, directions what ever then yep you got it right, you are a slut. You get into the front seat of a taxi, you are an incredibly stupid slut, you get into the back seat of a taxi and accidentally make eye contact with the driver through the rear view mirror you are a slut. You laugh too loud on the street with a bunch of female friends then you are a group of sluts. You smoke shisha, you are a slut, you smoke cigarettes in public, you are a slut bordering on a prostitute. You close the front door when a repair man is inside your house, you are a slut, foreign male friends visit you in your home you are a slut, Egyptian male friends visit you in your home you are an even bigger slut. You take your shoes off whist dancing... you are a slut. You are late for the train and hop in the mixed carriage, you are a slut. Seems like just existing makes you a slut!!
Ok rant over :D

Harassment... yes it is an issue

June the 20th was the day to blog and tweet about sexual harassment in Egypt, I was sick so I am late. I actually thought about avoiding the issue as it seems it will never get better, but then I thought about all of my friends who have made the effort to write something and I thought about how much the issue pisses me of so here is my piece on it. I shall start by giving you an example of a normal day in Maadi, which is a upscale neighborhood on the outskirts of Cairo inhabited by lots and lots of expats, so foreigners aren't such a strange site here.
I leave the house for work at around 7:30 dressed in jeans and a t shirt that shows no cleavage, I walk to the end of the street to hail a cab, before I reach the end of the street I am already shouted or hissed  at by at least one man. I hail a cab, I get in without making any eye contact and tell him my destination, he already has a face on him like the cat who has got the cream, he stares at me through the rear view mirror for the entire duration of the journey and every now and then he will ask me if I am single and if I like Egyptian men, sometimes he will go on to say I have beautiful eyes, I don't respond to this and put on my best "mean bitch " face. At my destination I get out and pay him and head towards the bridge that takes me to work. As I am walking to the top of the bridge a few guys ride by on mopeds, they make comments and get far too close for my liking, I get as close to the railing as I possibly can. Some days there is a guy on top of the bridge, he waits until I pass him and begins to masturbate as he walks behind me, I am sadly so used to this that I now just roll my eyes and continue walking at my normal pace. On the final street I encounter a group of school boys who laugh and point and make lewd comments. Then I get to work which is thankfully a harassment free zone, except for the days when we have work men in, but our caretaker quickly tells them to avert their eyes. From 9 to 9:30 the parents arrive with their children, the mothers often have horror stories from their own short journeys; one got flashed at with her two children in tow, and one pregnant mother was recently grabbed, more worryingly another mother spotted the masturbater doing his thing right outside the school. At 4 pm I leave work and maybe do some chores on the way home, I am constantly hissed at and guys seem to deliberately walk too close and bump into me. I get home and realize I need to order water, I call the local shop and 10 minutes later the delivery guy turns up, I answer the door in my most ugly clothes and with no make up, his eyes open up like he just saw a porn star, he greets me with a "Hey beautiful" and takes a step into my apartment; I give him an icy stare and tell him to get out, I shut the door on his face while I sort out his money, when I open the door again to give him his money he lets it drop to the floor and expects me to bend over in front of him to pick it up, when I refuse and slam the door he screams to me that I am a cunt!

This is a day when I stay in Maadi, where harassment isn't as bad as it is in the rest of Cairo, if I choose to go downtown, the taxi driver may try and grab my boobs, he may also offer me money for sex, as I walk down the street guys in nice cars will pull up close and tell me "oooh I wanna fuck you in the ass", if I choose to take the metro; guys at the metro station will begin to play porn on their phones and hold it in a way that I have to see it. The point is, it happens but people here, both male and female choose to deny it happens, and while they keep on denying it it will continue to happen. Women feel they can't speak out because it is somehow their fault and decent women don't get harassed.... BULLSHIT men made you feel like this OPEN YOUR EYES!! People say it happens everywhere and to some extent it does but I have never experienced it to this extent and neither has any foreigner I have spoken to. This blog won't change a thing, facing up to the fact that it is a problem will set the wheels of change in motion but I really wonder how long it will be before that happens... maybe we will all have to were a niquab to stop the poor men lusting after us. Until then I guess we will have to resign to kicking them in the balls... bastards